Word: monrovia
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...Marines into the civil war-torn African nation of Liberia. Their job: to evacuate any of the 370 Americans residing there who wanted to get out. On Sunday a force of 225 Leathernecks from four U.S. warships off the Liberian coast landed by helicopter in the capital of Monrovia and quickly began rounding up U.S. citizens, many of whom had gathered at the American embassy and communications centers in the city. The Marines, some of whom carried M-60 machine guns and light antitank weapons, encountered no immediate resistance and suffered no casualties. By evening, local time, at least...
...July 29 the violence in Liberia escalated dramatically. In one of the worst massacres of the nine-month-old civil war, troops allegedly loyal to Doe opened fire on some 2,000 refugees holed up in Monrovia's St. Peter's Lutheran Church. Firing with automatic weapons at point-blank range, the forces killed as many as 600. Survivors claimed that most of the victims were members of the Gio and Mano tribes. But the rebels are hardly a single unified front. Johnson's leadership is opposed by Charles Taylor, another insurgent, whose troops control parts of Monrovia...
...uprising ten years ago. But the dictator's string of victories seems to have run out. A force of some 5,000 rebels last week captured the Roberts Field International Airport; occupied the Firestone rubber plantation, the country's largest private employer; and drew up on the outskirts of Monrovia, the capital. Refusing to resign or flee, Doe barricaded himself in the executive mansion with several hundred members of his Israeli-trained elite guard. He vowed that the insurgents would take the city "over my dead body...
...coup in 1980 made him the first head of state who was not an "Americo-Liberian," the local term for descendants of the freed slaves from the U.S. who founded the country in 1822. Although Doe promptly executed many Americo-Liberians, Taylor returned to Monrovia to volunteer his services. He was appointed head of the General Services Administration, the government's purchasing agency. In 1983, after hearing that Doe was about to try him on charges of embezzling $900,000, he fled to the U.S. He was arrested near Boston and held for extradition but escaped from jail and found...
...panic intensified last week when Liberian troops invaded a United Nations compound in Monrovia where hundreds of Gio and Mano refugees were seeking protection. One security guard was killed, and as many as 40 refugees were abducted. In response, the U.S. dispatched a six-ship Navy flotilla to stand off the coast to evacuate American citizens if necessary...